The present invention relates to a system and method for remotely acquiring and selecting data for monitoring and analysis.
A remote data acquisition system can be used to acquire sensor data from a sensor attached to a test object. Transmission of sensor data from the remote data acquisition system is limited by bandwidth and speed of the communications link to the central control system. Increased separation of the remote data acquisition system from the central control system exacerbates the transmission bandwidth and speed problems.
Another problem is that a remote data acquisition system may be located where only low speed analog phone line transmission is available. This further slows transmission of remotely acquired data.
The problem of remote data transmission is more severe in the case of vibration data transmission. Generally, vibration data is sampled at at least twice a desired frequency. For example, if the desired frequency is 50 kHz, then the sampling frequency is at least 100 kHz. If the data acquisition system is sampling data from 200 sensors, then the data acquisition system is acquiring the data at a rate of at least 20 million data points per second. Sending data at this rate across the communication link may not be possible.
Additionally, it would be advantageous for an operator working at a remote workstation to be able to communicate with a sensor central control system. An operator may desire to both view sensor data stored on a central control system and also control operation of the remote sensor.
A system and method are needed to transmit large amounts of sampling data. Additionally, a system and method are needed that permit communication from a remote workstation.